It's true, the Olympics bring out a weird, latent interest in sports in me. Not sure why.

I know why I eagerly followed the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, a city I adore and to which I feel connected; a place where I have family and friends. But why do the summer games in Beijing interest someone who really loves only baseball and soccer and rarely even watches those sports on TV?

Maybe it's the spectacle, maybe it's the fact that during the Olympics we see the absolute international masters of the respective sports. There's excitement, there's drama and there's always top-notch performances. Maybe it's just that "Olympic fever" is infectious.

Whatever the reason, for the last week, I've watched the Americans wallop all comers in women's beach volleyball and I've watched more swim races than perhaps in 40 years previous. I've even seen a little cycling. I've seen gymnastics with women and men doing the most amazing and unlikely things. My son needed to see just five minutes of the gymnastics to spend the following week tumbling and jumping, "like the girls on TV."

Perhaps due to my TV-viewing schedule and my lack of cable -- and likely also due to the schedule of the games -- I haven't seen a real wide variety of sports, but I know they're playing soccer, basketball, fencing, archery, table tennis, table-less tennis, shooting, weightlifting, horse-riding and other events, too. If they appear on my screen some night in the next couple weeks, I'll probably watch them, too.